First Tove Jansson edition. Octavo. Publisher’s original quarter cloth over pictorial paper-covered boards. Gilt titles to spine, illustrated by Jansson to upper cover.
 
 A fresh, near fine copy. Some fading to the pink of the covers. Internally very fresh. Previous ownership inscription to front free endpaper.
 
An unusually attractive copy of the first Tove Jansson edition of The Hobbit.
 
In 1960 Astrid Lindgren, then an editor at Raben & Sjogren, commissioned Tove Jansson to produce illustrations for a new Swedish edition of The Hobbit, saying “… this will be the children’s book of the century, and will live long after we are dead and buried.”
 
Jansson got to work, attempting to break free from her renowned Moomin style by sketching each character twenty to sixty times before she was satisfied. One of the most startling depictions is Jansson’s Gollum, who appears as if a gigantic sea monster.
 
This is not out of keeping with Tolkien’s description of the creature as “Old Gollum... as dark as darkness, except for two big round pale eyes”, but it certainly was not what Tolkien had in mind, updating his description in the next edition of the text to “Old Gollum, a small slimy creature... as dark as darkness except for two big round pale eyes in his thin face”.